American Express Membership Rewards has a new promotion available for their U.S. based members, offering a 25% bonus on Membership Rewards transfers to Air France-KLM Flying Blue.

This promotion is showing up on my Platinum Charge Card / Amex EveryDay account and this time it also has an expiration date of April 29th, 2019 listed (many of the last transfer offers were targeted, not so this one).

The government of the Netherlands has just announced that the Dutch state takes a 12,6 % stake in the KLM/Airfrance holding, at a price tag of 680 Mio Euro to “protect Dutch interests”.

The government just made their decision public which will initially cost taxpayers 680 Million Euro and is apparently undertaken as to keep influence in AirFrance/KLM – KLM still being the countries de facto flag carrier.

The new Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith who came from Air Canada is starting to make changes at the company and appears to have come to a conclusion that there are simply too many brands; Air France, KLM, Transavia, HOP, JOON and what else.

JOON will soon have its last flights and the cabin crew will be absorbed into Air France. The flight crew, maintenance and marketing have been working under Air France contracts all along.